The Elder Scrolls V: War Forged
by HeWhoMustWrite
Summary: Enter Beatrice Morrad, Breton, Magician, Immigrant, Conflict-Profiteer Expansion/'Novelization' of the Civil War QL, will intersect with others at times. Warnings: Swearing, Violence, Darkness, Homosexuality, Subpar Writing.


Author' Note: I have no right to start other projects when I'm distracted enough as is but whatnot. If you read it and you like it, follow it. If you read it, review it. If you read and you hated it, review it politely.

Obligatory Disclaimer: Bethesda owns Skyrim, not me. OC's are mine, however.

Warning: _It's going to be dark _and I don't bury my gays, they're everywhere.

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**The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim**

**War-Forged**

Jehenna seemed very far behind her now, the Breton considered darkly as she stared down at the opposite side of the Draduach Mountains of the Reach. It was cold even for the season, the snows of Frostfall falling down upon her as she trudged through the passes of the most dangerous mountain range in either High Rock or Skyrim, not owing to natural forces or supernatural beast but rather that thing known as man. The Draduach were the range of the Forsworn who knew the mountains with a skilled and practiced ease comparable to Valenwood's greatest trackers at least in their own elements. Gloved fingers reached up to adjust the fur-lined hood that covered her chocolate brown locks of frozen hair, her skin usually a subtle light brown was scarred white from whipping snow and ice scratching at her exterior with a ferocious brutality. At least, she thought grimly, she had yet to run into any wraiths.

Not one to tempt fate, Beatrice Morrad decidedly did not think too loud on the lack of occasion as the ground steeply fell away. The decline wasn't dangerous to traverse, being cobbled and aligned it was one of the main roads into Skyrim, the rebelling province. A season prior one of the local kings had slain the High King and soon after the province was teetering on the edge thanks to the swift and heavy handed application of martial law throughout the nation, not shortly after that the lines in the sand were drawn and over all sides were chosen.

The first skirmishes took place not long after that, brother against brother in a civil war that should not have been happening. It had good pretext, in hindsight she thought as the descent continued. While not a proponent of the Nordic view of the Divines, the idea that Talos, one of the greatest heroes of mankind in general had been relegated to the side-chapter of history by the Thalmor's 'Peace' had left a bad taste in the mouths of most of the Empire's human citizens. For Beatrice though it was a point of laughter, the elves claimed haughtily that Talos had no place in their pantheon on the grounds of his mortality, yet any scholar could note, Arkay was also a mortal who rose to Godhood.

Pretext being good or not however, the moment blood was spilled, the response was heavy handed. The Imperial Legion mobilized its reserves across Skyrim and locked the province's borders down in all directions including the Sea of Ghosts, where the Imperial Navy impertinently patrolled to prevent shipments of goods to the areas of Skyrim held by the so called 'Stormcloak Rebellion', named after its leader, Ulfric Stormcloak of Windhelm and usurper of the High Throne of Skyrim. Roads did remain open, such as this one; they were heavily patrolled however, Beatrice having run into a full Centuria on the High Rock side of the border, was evidence of this.

By comparison, Skyrim, she noted, seemed sparsely guarded at all. The road while it was still early into her trek, was utterly deserted with only the howling of the wind for company, this gave her cause to be cautious, her hazel eyes swept out before her searching for any sign of life, or unlife for that matter. The path again leveled out as she descended into the war-torn kingdom in finality, the Reach was left at her back as she stepped onto the road north of what a nearby sign indicated as the King's Road to Solitude, the capital of Skyrim. The terrain remained hilly, owing to the fact the local 'hold' or whatever subdivision the Nords had decided on dividing their nation up into, was still sat upon the tops of mountains.

The sparsity of the roads aside and the cold weather forgotten the difference in High Rock and Skyrim was readily immediate. The view was no more breathtaking than the great sweeps of land back home, the it was in a word, cruder. The cobbles of the roads were rough and uneven, loose dirt spilled from between them at nearly regular intervals as though to make up for their lack of uniformity. A naturally abstract thinker, Beatrice was less impressed and more saddened the Nords were so uncreative, at least the Imperials with their zealous uniformity was something in a way to be admired from a thinking point of view. It reflected them after all, spoke of how they were. If this is how the Nords spoke of themselves then their self-image was a very depressing thing.

The Breton mused in her thoughts as she walked for a long while, Magnus the Great trekked across the sky as she did so, going from its tall height in the morn to its apex by the time she halted, shaking herself from her thoughts. The road went ever on ahead of her, the stones had smoothed out sometime ago and the air of civility rose up, in the distance so dominating was it that the haze-covered cloud-topped precipices of Solitude jutted up in artificial right-angles and sharp rises contrary to the natural mountains that it straddled, the greatest city of the Nords was clearly hewed from strong stone, on the backs of Nord labor perhaps, but with the skill of an Imperial architect. She was, suffice to say, impressed. It wasn't Jehenna, it wasn't Daggerfall, but it was impressive.

The quiet of the road was considerably gone as she walked on as she found herself sharing it with milling streams of people, Nord, Imperial, fellow Breton, Redguard and even Elves were streaming the way she had just come. _Refugees._ The thought came without needing to be said, these were the homeless, the dispossessed and as more than one cart carrying the old and the infirm, the invalids as well. It was a train of carriages and walkers laden down with all the belongings they had left or could carry; all of them in flight from that which had consumed their land. More than one look went her way as to say _You're going the wrong way._ Quite. It was odd her draw to this shattered land, but she felt a purposed need to be here, and here she was. Reddish locks fell across her eyes as her hood slipped down for the first time, the snow had let up and the winds had died down. It was hardly warm but she could not bare to be restricted in such a way for any longer. The faces along the path blended into one another as the people became more of the same. No one stood out, there were no great heroes here, just the shell-shocked who were running.

There was nothing wrong with this, Beatrice reasoned mentally, it was understandable to flee from war, that terrible thing that had not been experienced in true totality since before her birth, though her mind did not consider The Great War as such a thing, while it was terrible it was not war. That, she reasoned as she side-stepped a farmer, was Conquest. War was something else entirely, war was the obliteration of an enemy's ability to fight, the sublimation of their territories and the annexation of their peoples into the whole of slavery or death. What she considered war, the world had not seen for over two hundred years when the hordes of Oblivion itself poured forth across the lands and scarred every part of Tamriel, and possibly Pyandorea as well.

So it was completely understandable that they ran. She however would not, because there was nothing like conflict to bring forth the heroism in people, even bitter conflicts like this one...

Magnus was sinking when she came to a halt for the final time, the road was clear once again, the train that was running she had outrun in turn, they fled to safety, she went to war. Mentally she used the term because that's what she suspected of this rebellion, that it would indeed, become war, rather than conquest.

The ground to the side of the road was frosted and cold for but a moment as she stepped off the uneven road, summoning up brimming heat from her core and through sheer concentration bringing life to fire that erupted from her hands melting away the snow quickly, leaving a patch of vibrant green, if not slightly scorched, grass. She fell on it immediately. An exasperated groan rose up from her tired throat as the sun gave way to blackness, this was technically dangerous but in that moment she didn't care, she simply slept for the first night under Skyrim's Nordic skies, as opposed to Breton ones. The blackness of the sky was not lost on her, either as she drifted into a twilight-sleep, not daring to allow herself to relax any further than that so as to avoid being eaten by wolves... or worse.

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So ends the prelude.

Happy Saturnalia and Merry Christmas.


End file.
